An irreverant view of life after SIXTY-FIVE

Have You Met Luna Saint Claire?

Horns blare! Drumroll, please. It is with pleasure I introduce guest Luna Saint Claire who today shares background information about her début novel The Sleeping Serpent.

Luna is a costume designer and author residing in Los Angeles with her husband, a philosophy professor. She loves blues rock and Indie music, often setting her Pandora station to Damien Rice. Her personal style can best be described as eclectic bohemian. Though she now enjoys running and yoga, she spent years of her youth in the ballet studio. Her part Native American heritage informs her work as a designer and influences her storytelling.

Thrilling as The Girl on the Train, twisted as Gone Girl, and tortured as Wuthering Heights.

Losing Myself

by Luna Saint Claire

Vampires are real. Not the paranormal kind with blood and fangs, but rather emotional vampires—the ones who use manipulation and compulsion to seduce. Charming and magnetic, they appear to be perfect—the answer to your prayers. Truth is, they have targeted you.

I think we have all been there on some level. When you meet someone who you connect with—someone who seems to know who you are, and what you need. It happened to me when I met a charismatic healer. I was hitting middle-age, mourning my youth and beauty, and bored with my conventional and circumscribed existence. He had a keen ability to quickly identify my vulnerability—often called the inner wound—and hook me through my lack of self-esteem, vanity, and fears. He made me feel beautiful and important to him, and gave me confidence, opening me up to the possibilities surrounding me. Being married, I, fortunately, didn’t have a romantic relationship with him. Yet, he still had influence over me. He was a shaman and yoga master who used the power of Kundalini for the dark side of self-interest—his desire for wealth and fame.

A dark healer hooks their victim in the chakra that holds their wound—where they are weakest. In the seduction phase, he showered me with his attentions. He made me feel a part of him—of something larger, and somehow more alive. Before I knew it, I was caught in the spider’s web, struggling for survival, craving the drug that was his flattery, approval, validation. Then slowly and methodically he began tearing me down. It may have started with an argument where he lost his temper and then apologized, excusing himself by saying he was frustrated or had a stressful day. Over time it escalated to berating until I barely registered the verbal abuse. If I was unavailable at work or didn’t pick up his call, or couldn’t respond immediately to his demands, he would threaten to end our friendship. When he flew into a rage, I would be the one to apologize for causing his distress. He played a cat and mouse game of pushing me away and then reeling me back in. I couldn’t bear the thought of abandoning him, but I no longer recognized myself. I had become a shadow of my former self and my self-worth had been shattered.

I wasn’t the only one bound to him. As a successful healer with his own celebrity, he possessed an entourage of beautiful, successful Hollywood women. He ensured we each believed we were the most important person to him. I excused his behavior, saying he was nervous with a fear of abandonment, but I didn’t know about narcissistic personality disorder. Persons with this disorder do not have the capacity to love, treating others as an appendage. They operate on instinct to procure what they need, though they will never feel gratified. Just like in a vampire story, a narcissist drains another’s life force in the attempt to fill the echoing emptiness within. His affliction was the cruelest inhumanity, and his pain and suffering could never be assuaged. The extreme drama he created when his demands were not met were a plea for validation and stemmed from his fear of abandonment. The rages and meltdowns provided a euphoric high empowering him in the face of feeling worthless. I felt compelled to fix him, even though I knew I couldn’t.

How much longer and at what cost could I continue to open my veins to quell the storm that tormented him? Like many of the other women who had become ensnared in his cannibalizing web, I was faced with the choice of bleeding to death or reclaiming my life. I learned from a friend in 12 Steps about chasing the high, trying to regain the elation once felt in the initial phase of a relationship, be it with a drug or a person. Getting it back had become my obsession. The craving, desperation and painful longing—that was the addiction talking.

Once I disentangled myself from him, I reflected on what had called the relationship to me. It had been my fear of aging—of becoming invisible—no longer having heads turn when I walked into a room, no longer feeling desired. Weathering this personal storm was a valuable experience that made me stronger and wiser. It is only through such an eroding experience that I believe one can transform. Whether by free will or fate, my encounter with a narcissistic sociopath provoked a storm that shattered my perception of identity, duty, morality, and self-worth. The storm didn’t blow in from the outside. I was the storm. Its turbulence forced me to confront the darkness, uncovering my secrets and my pain.

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I'm getting a little LONG in the tooth and have things to say about---ouch---AGEing. I believe it's certainly a state of mind but sometimes it's nice to hear that you're NORMAL. I enjoy reading by the truckload. I'm a grandma but I don't feel OLD although I'm not so young anymore. My plan is to stick it out as long as I can on this lovely planet and only will leave it kicking and screaming!

Thank you @lizziechantree — If you do get a chance to read The Sleeping Serpent please let me know. I am following you on Facebook and Twitter please follow me back and I will happily share your posts.

Reblogged this on Smorgasbord – Variety is the spice of life and commented:
Tess Karlinski hosts Luna Saint Claire today and shares her book The Sleeping Serpent.. “Vampires are real. Not the paranormal kind with blood and fangs, but rather emotional vampires—the ones who use manipulation and compulsion to seduce. Charming and magnetic, they appear to be perfect—the answer to your prayers. Truth is, they have targeted you”.. head over and read more about this dark story.

Thank you so much for this opportunity! It took me until I had both the time and the distance to write The Sleeping Serpent – a woman’s struggle to break an obsessive bond, and reclaim her life. Now, I’m on book 2 — so I’m putting me head down right now. I’ll check in later to comment! Have a great day!! And thank you for reading my essay.

I’m so pleased to see Luna featured on your blog, Tess. Your layout is superb, and your intro spurs curiosity to read further.

Luna, your article speaks to the heart of addiction. Whenever we allow fear to consume us, we grab hold of something equally powerful to numb and obscure in order to survive. Well written and on point.

Hi Tina! I didn’t get back on here until this morning! Thank you for your kind words, and endless support. In The Sleeping Serpent, woven into the dark story of a sociopath is the aspect of fear (both Nico’s and Luna’s) and its paralyzing influence of the dark side over higher truth. We have a similar cosmology, I’ll be reading your work soon!

Hey Robbie! Thank you for your kind words. I had never hear of narcissistic personality disorder until I met it head on! I heard the term narcissistic and aligned it with vanity. I didn’t understand its roots and the full-on behavior and desperate craving for adoration and validation along with the violence that accompanies it. I also never assumed addiction could include relationships — though I thought I understood co-dependency. This story gives a greater understanding of why people stay in abusive relationships.

Wow–sounds like an intense book. I have known people like this, and it’s very hard to break free. Putting the information our there like this is a good way to help people see through the tricks of those who seek to control others.

Oooh, this looks deliciously ardent. I do love complex relationships, er, in books and onscreen only. I hope to read this. Pleased to meet you Luna and thank you, dear Tess for the lovely introduction. Hope this week is treating you all well. 🙂